Sports Illustrated: Seattle Mariners have the best pitching staff in more than 40 years

No team has pitched as well as the 2014 Seattle Mariners since the dawn of the designated hitter.

You have to go all the way back to 1972 — the year pitchers were so dominant that American League owners voted to have sluggers hit for pitchers, as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci noted Tuesday — to find the last MLB team that pitched as well as these M’s.

Chris Young, 35, is one of the several Mariners pitchers who have made a surprising contribution to Seattle’s pitching prowess. (Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

The season isn’t over yet, but the Mariners are holding opposing batters to a .224 average, they have a team ERA of 2.95 (the only club under 3.00), and they are giving up just 3.19 runs per game — leading the MLB in each category. And while the offense performs under the MLB average by scoring just 3.96 runs per game, Seattle is primed to appear in the postseason for the first time since 2001.

SI’s Verducci isn’t the only national pundit showing the M’s some love, but his piece Tuesday pointed out some eyebrow-raising facts about the 2014 M’s. Here’s an excerpt (based on Monday’s statistics):

Seattle is winning with Deadball Baseball. Its team ERA is 2.94, including 1.89 this month. Think about that: 2.94 in the AL! My, how much the game has changed. As recently as 10 years ago, the Twins led the league with a 4.03 ERA. The Mariners’ ERA is so low it would have led the AL way back in its first season of 1901, when the ball (one per game might do) didn’t have a cork center and was likely covered in dirt, saliva, tobacco juice or slippery elm. …

The Mariners’ pitching staff is the result of exploiting just about every run-prevention methodology that has created the greatest pitching era in 40 years: hard throwers with an extra-deep bullpen backed by advanced analytics and a defense featuring the kind of rangy athletes who were effectively drummed out of the game in the Steroid Era. It helps, too, that Seattle plays its home games in a pitcher’s paradise, Safeco Field.

You can read Verducci’s entire column, which also discusses Seattle’s individual pitchers and the team’s rebound from a bad defensive showing in 2013, over on SI.com.